Quotes About Wealth

In the words of Henry Wallich, governor of the US Federal Reserve in the 1970s, 'Growth is a substitute for equality of income. So long as there is growth there is hope, and that makes large income differentials tolerable.'70

The Wealth of Nations.

There are clearly many ways to more equitably share the wealth that lies beneath our feet. Ostrom was quick to point out, however, that there is no panacea for managing land and its resources well: neither the market, the commons nor the state alone can provide an infallible blueprint. Approaches to distributive land design must fit the people and the place, and may well work best when they combine all three of these approaches to provisioning.44

Between 1988 and 2008, the majority of countries worldwide saw rising inequality within their borders, resulting in a hollowing out of their middle classes. Over those same 20 years, global inequality fell slightly overall (mostly thanks to falling poverty rates in China), but it increased significantly at the extremes.

Instead of focusing primarily on redistributing income earned, they will aim to redistribute wealth too—especially the wealth that comes from controlling land, money creation, enterprise, technology and knowledge. And instead of focusing on market and state solutions alone, they will also harness the power of the commons. It's a fundamental shift in perspective, and it is well under way.

As soon as I began to earn what might be called fairly large sums, I bought a car and began to explore the country around New York.

There is one thing alone to do in this world and that is to keep acquiring money and more money, power and more power," Napoleon said.15 He

If one is rich and one's a woman, one can be quite misunderstood.

The rule is not to talk about money with people who have much more or much less than you.

poverty was not always a disadvantage at the baths. Far from making everyone equal, nudity imposed its own hierarchy, one that frequently favoured the toned body of the poorest freedman or slave over that of the indulged, unexercised rich man.

Piped-in water on every floor and multiple water closets and baths had been feasible since the mid-eighteenth century, but few people, even prosperous ones, took advantage of the technology until a century later.

During the sixteenth, seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries, when people avoided water and believed that a clean linen shirt extracted dirt, there was little or no demand for toilet soap. The rich women who used it, mostly on face and hands, thought of it as more a cosmetic or perfume than a cleanser.

Because the middle classes and the nouveaux riches welcomed gas, water closets and piped-in water, the upper classes drew back. Many a denizen of a sprawling, stony-cold country estate looked on "mod cons" as slightly uncouth, over-eager and—worst of all—middle-class.

Going to the Upper East Side is like taking a trek to the Himalayas practically.

If guilt's a luxury, then I'm a plutocrat.

A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about.

The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.

Men hold two views of what happiness consists in, viz, having, and doing. To possess much, or to do some great thing, constitutes the sum of human blessedness according to popular theory.

People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the project nor contribute a pound of materials will collect more money...than will the people who will supply all the materials and do all the work.56

The circular which was distributed to attract subscribers to the Bank's initial stock offering explained: "The Bank hath benefit of interest on all the moneys which it, the Bank, creates out of nothing.

The poor complain that they are governed badly. The rich complain that they are governed at all.

To be clever enough to get all the money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

By the summer of 1988, Bill Gates was the leading representative of a new breed of tycoon: the software superrich. Just as oil created a kind of royalty in the last century, "wildcat" programmers had emerged among the wealthiest self-made men in America. Paul Allen, who had left Microsoft because of illness, was worth megamillions. So were the founders of other leading software companies. At the age of thirty-three, Gates was the youngest billionaire in the United States.

What is the use of money if one cannot use it to make one's friends comfortable?